That’s pretty much where I’m coming down, and too many Republicans don’t want to admit it. Especially the clowns in DC.
But, numbers don’t lie, and unlike economists, engineers don’t let numbers lie and we don’t make simplifying assumptions... if engineers did their math the way economists did, you’d see engineering papers start out like this:
“Assume there’s no friction or gravity...”
But, numbers don’t lie, and unlike economists, engineers don’t let numbers lie and we don’t make simplifying assumptions... if engineers did their math the way economists did, you’d see engineering papers start out like this:
“Assume there’s no friction or gravity...”
In defense of the study of economics, engineers make many simplifying assumption. If you remember studying Newtons laws in school you might remember something like this "suppose Johnny throws a baseball at such and such and angle and speed. Calculate how far the ball will travel?" Newton's laws assume their is not air resistance. This is an obvious flaw in using this, but calculation can get immensely complex if you try to account for all variables. Do we have to account differences in humidity, temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind direction and speed, the roughness of the baseball, etc. to get an acceptable formula? Depending on the conditions, probably not.
The problem with economics, in my humble opinion, is the reliance on the work of Keynes. He theory contains many bad assumptions. The stagflation of the 1970's should not have been possible in Keyne's model. If you read the work of more conservative economist such as Walter Williams, Milton Friedman, even the old Austrians like Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard do not seem to have things happen "unexpectdly" like modern Keyne's and Krugmanites do.
The reason such thinkers do not gain popularity is they have so silver bullet government cavalry rides to the rescue. The system naturally favors economist who can give the government the glory since they pay the bills both with the Fed and Universities as major employers of economist.